Foreshortening of fibrous structures has been known. Foreshortening has been used in the past to increase a fibrous structure's caliper, absorbency and/or softness. Unfortunately, foreshortening is accompanied by some well-known negative side effects, including process reliability as well as productivity, i.e. the achievable production speed of the papermaking process.
Achieving a low level of foreshortening is facilitated by operating at high machine-direction tensile (MDT) values or by minimizing basis weight (BW). Accordingly, there is a need for a papermaking process for total foreshortening of fibrous structures by an amount less than about 29%+[6%× ln(BW/MDT)].
Foreshortening of the fibrous structure after drying, so-called “dry-end foreshortening”, is particularly degradative to productivity and reliability. Accordingly, there is alternatively a need for a papermaking process for dry-end foreshortening of fibrous structures by an amount less than about 48%+[14.5%×ln(BW/MDT)].